I say Look, you can sit here eating and look in that big mirror and you don't have to turn around, chewing, to watch the dancers. He says No, but the real thing is so much better. I say You're a neurologist, so you should know as well as anyone that whether you look directly at her, or in the mirror, it's just a reflection on your retina. It's the same show, but without the social awkwardness. He says But the real thing is so much better. And anyway, all this is just a tease. I say But when the real thing goes bad, like it often does, don't you usually wish it had just stopped with the teasing? Isn't the real thing often just a letdown? Apparently, I had a point.

He says I can't tell whether you are wild or boring. I say I'm both; I'm wildly boring. He's not laughing but I am. I don't think I live in the same reality as most people; sometimes I wonder if I'm schizophrenic, I say and he says I have ADD, and I'm not taking any medication for it and then he wonders what I studied in college. Philosophy and psychology. I'm kind of an epistemologist, which is about discovering the origins of knowledge. How do you know what you think you know? Now he's laughing, and I'm not.

Then I tell him I'm a transsexual and he says I suspected that yesterday, which is absolute bullshit because I know what it's like when someone looks at me thinking I'm a hot blonde piece of ass and when someone is clocking me as a tranny. Not that I'm merely bragging; it's just that the difference between these two situations is extreme. He said I can tell because you're not completely feminine like that woman on the stage.

The woman in question is maybe six inches shorter than me, buck ass naked, much larger breasted, and in fairly good shape for being so skinny. She's folded completely in half, still standing. The music is mid- to late-80's rock. Apparently I belong to the club's target market, or would have had I been a straight boy.

I say Yeah, well. Not all that many women are feminine like she is, oddly enough. He says Your face has the characteristics of both woman and man. I say Most people's do. He says What kind of genitals do you have? and I say That's an awfully personal question. He says I know but have you had an operation? A penis or a vagina? And I say It's not like that for me. We need to modify the lexicon before I can accurately talk about what's between my legs. Okay, so maybe now I'm just bragging. I say Think about intersex conditions. The clitoris, the penis, it's pretty much the same organ, and this is what you have to understand about me.

He says I want you to promise me something and I say I'm not promising you anything before you ask the question. He says I want to see you naked. I say That wasn't phrased in the form of a question; there's no promise there. I watch this hilarious woman pull a fake lily through her g-string, alternately making it stand and wilt. She's an absolute riot, probably my age or older. I tell him I'm not going to be your freakshow.

No he says I'm interested. I've never seen a...person like yourself. Maybe if I do this I can start figuring out a way to send myself out to conferences and bestow CMEs on doctors who are interested in seeing me naked, like a peepshow with labcoats and a catered buffet. We sit there a while more while we finish the food and talk. I toss down the rest of my drink and tell him I'm ready to go.

So we get up to his hotel room and I'm still in my work clothes; ancient khakis (which are, more accurately, the color of sand) and company-logo buttondown. Sweaty from the humid day. Perhaps if I had a stomach flu, I might feel a little less attractive. We establish that neither one of us had condoms, and neither one of us is going to go find any. I remind him about unsafe sex. I start stripping: khakis, shirt, socks, bra, undies. Slow, but not sultry. He's fascinated, but staying dressed. Well, if that's the way it's gonna be I think. He wants to see a naked transsexual, he's going to see a naked transsexual. We sit and talk a while about safe sex -- my new favorite subject -- and he starts reinterpreting my body aloud. He says You should work out, and you would be so much happier if you saved up five thousand dollars and got breast augmentation as if it was that easy and I say I bet you'd be happier for me. He seems disappointed that my genitals are not less normal in appearance. He leans back on his bed. Maybe he's had enough. I settle into the chair, naked as you please, and feeling better about it by the moment. He tells me I need to see a doctor about any potenial feminized organs (in case they are cancerous) and that I should get surgeries. I thank him for the advice and wish out loud for money to fall down from heaven. It never comes, and neither do we.

I get dressed, having fulfilled my free freakshow duty. He asks me to call him later, which I of course don’t do. I head back to my bed and breakfast to sleep in the big soft bed, still wearing my genitals and my breasts and sleep comfortably knowing that letdowns really hurt most when the teasing convinces you that something imagined is actually real.

Rahne Alexander, that whore, has more writing waiting for you at http://www.xantippe.com/ae -- or does she?